As I expected, my life has been a bit crazy for the last few weeks. My work is fast-paced, and I work with many different groups, so there’s always a new challenge to wrap my brain around, or a new problem to help solve. I’m enjoying being back in the thick of things, social media-wise, and that includes the sometimes odd hours and late nights.

This weekend, of course, was an example of that, as news of singer Amy Winehouse’s passing started hitting the Twitterverse shortly after 1pm, and the major news outlets about 20-30 minutes after that.

I’ve seen quite a few different flavors of a community since starting at Billboard. For example, I never knew that Lil Kim fans and Nicki Minaj fans were so fanatically passionate about those artists, nor did I know that there’s a bit of a rivalry between the two fan camps. Bruno Mars fans digitally came out en masse to support him when he appeared on our cover just over a week ago, selling out the issue online within 48 hours.

I’m knee-deep in Billboard’s communities every day. Like most companies, we have slightly different audiences on each of our social outposts (Facebook and Twitter are the ones I’m involved with the most), and different stories see different reactions and different attentions paid to them depending on where they’re posted.

The news about Amy’s passing is tragic, though, as many have noted, not wholly unexpected. Within minutes of the story breaking, our Charted Artists Twitter list was full of tweets reflecting on her life, mourning her passing, and declaring that they were “hoping for a comeback”. Flipping over to my own Twitter feed, I saw much of the same thing from people I know and follow. Facebook was the same for me – people were posting videos of her songs and noting that they were really hoping she’d get better and have an amazing comeback album. Hopping over to the Billboard Facebook page, we saw comments coming in about her death (no doubt they heard about it on Twitter) and asking us for verification within minutes of the story appearing on Twitter.

We ended up posting 4 articles about her death, and the comments and reactions on both Facebook and Twitter were much the same for all of them. Many people shared their condolences for her loved ones, many expressed their sadness that there would be no comeback album, many said that her death was tragic and is an example of what drug addiction can do to a person (note: the cause of death hasn’t been determined, but many people are assuming it’s due to drugs), and some people even went as far to say that she “deserved to die” because she had problems with drugs and alcohol. We also had a few people question why we weren’t covering the news in Oslo, and sharing that they felt saddened that the singer’s death was more popular online than the news about that tragedy.

What did I learn from all of this?

• Every community member has a voice, and it’s usually a smart idea to let them use it
• Communities are very willing to self-moderate if you give them the chance
• Letting conversations develop, but also letting people know that they aren’t alone, is a hard (but necessary) balance to strike
• Most people were genuinely hoping for Amy to overcome her personal demons and let her talents shine
• Music is emotional. Death is emotional. We’re talking about a celebrity death, yes, but one who, like most musicians, genuinely touched people’s lives.

So for you musicians out there who have growing fan bases, for those who are active on Twitter and Facebook, and for those who you talk to people about your music on a regular basis… don’t forget that the people in your community are actual people. I have a post coming up about how to balance “you” v. “your brand”, but I’ll say this to start – don’t be afraid to let your personality and your life shine through. I think that communities have a way of surprising the people that are in charge of guiding/moderating/managing/shepherding them – they surprise you in the very best of ways sometimes. I’ve seen it more times than I can count in my 10 years of being involved with online communities, and this weekend was no different.

Speaking personally, I do think that Amy’s life was ended too soon. I won’t remark on the cause of death since it hasn’t been verified, but I stand with the many who were hoping for a comeback album, and the many that were touched by her music. I truly believe that her raw power and talent laid the way for many stars today – she reminded the public that music could be amazing without being over-produced, and she reminded many of stars in the days gone by. She will certainly be missed, and I hope that society starts to think of addictions (of all kinds) as something other than a personal weakness.

I’m trying to expand the content of this blog a bit and talk about different topics. You’ll see this in the upcoming weeks, but I wanted to get the ball rolling now by talking about an awesome conference coming up in NYC called BlogWorldExpo.

Now, normally this awesome conference takes place in Vegas. As I’ve never been to Vegas, this obviously means that I’ve had to lustfully watch the Twitter and blog chatter about all the awesome panels (and yes, the awesome “networking events”) too from the sidelines.

This year, however, they announced that the conference was coming to New York City. Three cheers for local conferences!

Unfortunately, due to work obligations, I’ll still be lustfully watching from the sidelines (though undoubtedly going to the events at night to catch up with people/do the networking thing).

Lucky for you, on top of some awesome panels planned around social media, content creation, legal issues surrounding all of this stuff, analytics, and other industry-type panels, there are a few music marketing panels planned!

If you’re around, I’d suggest checking any/all of them out. Even if they’re not directly related to what you’re doing right now, they’ll likely provide some good food-for-thought. If I’ve learned anything from attending conferences throughout the years it’s that you’ll never know when you need to use what you’ve learned, and you’ll also never stop being surprised by who you meet.

Without further ado, here are the music-related panels:

SXSW4Japan: A Case Study in Real Time, Iterative Development, Crisis Response, Crowd Sourcing and Social Good.

Why should you care? Because if you ever have wanted to support a charity, figure out how to motivate a group of people, understand how to organize people over long distances, or gather ideas from an audience, this case study is for you. I can think of a million ways a growing band could use these techniques to gain popularity and sell their music, but why don’t you attend and tell me what you think instead?

What Goes Into Growing a Music Blog

One would probably argue that I should attend this panel, but this blog is more of a marketing blog as opposed to a music review blog (OK, so it IS a marketing blog and ISN’T a music review blog – let’s make that clear). Nevertheless, I’ve learned that chatting with other bloggers is a great way to learn how to be a better blogger myself, so I’d suggest this panel for anyone that wants to learn about blogging.

College Music BlogWorld

Show of hands for who wants people to listen to their music? Oh, every one of you dear readers? That’s what I thought! This panel is all about how numerous acts have made it big by attracting attention from the college markets before the indies or the majors, and it’s a good lesson in how to start spreading your music far and wide. Go forth and… learn?

What if I can’t go?

Even if you can’t attend, the great people at Social Fresh (as well as numerous other blogs and Twitter folk) will be covering the content, so I suggest following along by using the Twitter hashtag #bweny (click on the link to see a Twitter search I set up for the hashtag) and paying attention to your favorite marketing and social media blogs for their takes on their talks or the sessions they attended.

We’ve all seen this happen before. You buy tickets to an event, and the artist gets sick (or the venue loses it’s license, or the tour manager quits, or the date is re-scheduled because Venus is in Saturn’s path and their stars aren’t aligned).

If this was 1990, you would call the ticketing company or stop by the venue and get a re-issued ticket.

If this was 1999, you’d likely get an email about the change with notes on how to claim your ticket for the rescheduled event.

In 2011, you might find out about the show from a Facebook status update from your friend who is going with you, an email, or a Tweet from the artist or venue.

Either way, you’re likely going to re-post to share with other people that are also going to the show, and the communication chain unfolds online.

The Point?

People have the expectation of to-the-minute communication in today’s world. If I’m going to a concert (in this case, a festival), it’s all well and good that I can choose which artists I want to keep an eye on months ahead of time…. but if I’m still wondering about set times 3 days before the event starts, I’m going to wonder why and want someone, somewhere, to say something!

Coachella is all over the social web – kudos to them! But, if you’re not actively participating and monitoring the conversations and key questions from people reaching out to you, you’re only halfway there.

Part of being present on the social web in this case is using it as Q&A tool (as one example). What are people talking about? What are they asking questions about? How can I help get them answered? It’s online customer service… nothing too fancy or groundbreaking!

Right now, I don’t so much care about H&M’s thing at Coachella… what I want to know is who I’m going to see play and when!

I also don’t care about (what’s likely a virus), clicking on some girl’s photo to help her win a trip or something or other. Coachella – use the moderation tools available to you and pay attention!

So perhaps this is a bit of a selfish plea for Coachella to either release the set times, or tell people why they’re taking so long.

But perhaps it’s also a lesson about making sure you have the resources and time to dedicate to both the posting and the responding to content online, especially if social media is a part of your marketing mix.

I’ve recently started to get more involved with a few music networking/tech groups around the NYC area – namely, NY Music Tech and Noteworking meetups.  This past Monday saw a NY Music Tech event take place at The Knitting Factory in Brooklyn, and I helped work the door for the event.

The duties were basic.  Look at the online RSVP list and cross people off, collecting their money as they entered.  The venue is large and held the group comfortably, but as the only bar that was open was in another room, a lot of people wanted to “leave” (to go to the bar) and come back in.

Enter, the stamp.

Now, I’m personally not a big fan of stamps.  I understand their value, but I don’t like them.  For some reason they still remind me of the large X’s I used to have to get on my hands when going to see bands before I was 21, and they’re darn hard to wash off (the stamps and the X’s).

It does seem that I’m in the minority on that front, though.  The group was manageable in size (about 40-50 people this month) and I’m darn good at remembering faces.  So, when people stepped to the front room to grab a drink before the presentations began, I said “no problem, see you soon!” and let them go.  What started as one or two people asking to be stamped on their way “out” quickly turned into almost every person that left to grab a drink checking that they could come back in and double-checking that no, I really didn’t have a stamp.

I was puzzled, but The Knitting Factory graciously provided a stamp for me to use (mainly to stop the questions from being asked about said stamp) and I started sarcastically stamping away, asking every person that asked for a stamp if they wanted one or just thought they needed one before they went to grab a drink.

The overwhelming majority insisted that they wanted to be stamped, and I quickly found a lot of enjoyment out of making large, dark “100″ marks on the top of everyone’s hands, whether they were planning on grabbing a drink from the bar or not.

It appears that people just really like to collect stamps!

On top of me still trying to wrap my mind around why (can anyone help enlighten me?) anyone would want a stamp, my mind quickly wandered to the marketing application of the stamps.  We know that people like them, and many people commented that they knew people who proudly wore theirs as badges of honor “I did this, I was there!” after a weekend at shows.

Why, if that is the case, do bands not make more customized stamps? Typically the venues provide the stamps and they’re usually pretty meaningless to the bands – they’re either a random shape or symbol, or the venue logo.

Why not instead provide your OWN stamp at the door, and allow people to show off YOUR logo after the show? Doesn’t that make more sense?

You could take it a step further and provide something that people could do after the event with their stamp (perhaps a photo submission contest of some sort, making sure that the stamp is visible in the photo) to keep the engagement going after the event.

The ideas are plentiful! The lesson? Don’t overlook a seemingly “normal” part of a concert-going experience. Instead, see if you can capitalize on that “normal” experience and turn “just something that happens” into working for you as something novel.

What say you on the stamp v. no stamp debate? Are you pro-stamp or anti-stamp? Why?

This is a story about a little festival that could.

They could produce a stellar lineup. They could sell out within a week. They could promise to be one of the best festivals of the year, if not the past few combined.

This little festival that could did put together a stellar lineup, did sell out within a week, and does promise to be one of the best festivals of the year – if not the past few combined.

This not-so-little festival can also be rude, as seen above.

If you haven’t been paying attention, there’s been a lot of chatter about Coachella over the past few weeks. First, there was the excitement over the lineup (summary: “HOLY COW IT’S AMAZING!”), then there was the chatter about tickets going on sale (summary: “YAY! I HAVE MY TICKET AND I’M SO EXCITED!). Then tickets sold out, Coachella posted their “kthxbye” Tweet was posted and we saw the following:

I get being sassy. I understand that a music festival (or an artist, or a producer, or a disc jockey) may have a bit more leeway than your standard corporate account on Twitter. I even get that humor (in this case, trying to use lolcat humor) can be witty and funny.  However, in this instance, the tweet was just plain rude.

Tickets were going for $1,000+ at the point that the tweet was posted, and the festival and the 75,000 tickets offered sold out within 6 days.  6 days!  Many people were waiting on paychecks to come in, or waiting to get vacation time approved at work.  I know quite a few people myself that had booked accommodation and airfare, but were waiting on buying tickets until they got paid again (just like they did in years before).

Knowing that people are spending a lot of money to go to this festival, and knowing that tickets sold out much more quickly than in years previous, the least that @Coachella could do was show a bit of sympathy, or even thank the people who purchased tickets, when they ran out.

A few examples of tweets that would have worked better than their rude tweet:

“Overwhelming response to ticket sales! We’re sold out already!”

“Thanks to all that bought tickets for this years festival – we just sold out in record time!”

No, it wouldn’t have solved all of the complaints. But, what tweets like the one above would have done was remove the sassy and rude aspect of their current tweet, as well as show appreciation for people that bought the tickets.

Sometimes using humor goes a bit too far, and the fact that people are still talking about that tweet 2 days later shows that this time, it did indeed cross that line.

Coachella – in the future, put yourself in the shoes of the people you’re talking to and ask yourself how they would feel before you tweet. Humor doesn’t always translate well online, especially on Twitter.

At first blush, yoga and music don’t have a ton in common – aside from the fact that music is usually playing during a yoga class, of course.

I was willingly having my ass kicked by a great yoga instructor at my gym last night when the strikingly simple analogy hit me – yoga is just like practicing a musical instrument. Bear with me here…

The basics of practicing seem simple – you play a piece over and over and over until you get it right.  But look deeper, and you notice the nuances.  Are your fingers correctly placed on the violin so that your notes come out on pitch, as opposed to sharp or flat? Are you moving them at the right time for the runs? When you’re drumming, how is the tension in your arms and wrist affecting how you strike the drum? Where are you holding the tension? Where should you be relaxing?

The most simple of techniques, rudiments, fundamentals or poses can take on a completely different light when you analyze them and pay attention to the action of doing them, not just the getting through them to the next phrase or pose.

Enter – the mountain pose.  It’s literally what you see above – standing with your feet together and arms at your side, palms facing forward.  How deceptively simple! “Standing up, I do that all day!”

Right – but how often do you pay attention to how you’re standing? How often do you pay attention to if your toes are spread or together – to how your feet are grounded on the floor? How often do you think of where your hips are in relation to your shoulders, or how your neck is aligned with everything else?

You don’t. Just like you might not pay attention to how you’re striking the drum or if your fingers are placed in exactly the right place on your violin at exactly the right moment.  These little details escape us as we rush through our lives and through our practice… we often get through them just to get to the next point.

The lesson I took away from yoga last night was this – before you move onto the advanced stuff (running a Twitter contest for tickets, or developing a strategy for increasing the engagement on your Facebook Fan Page), make sure you have the basics down (like Tweeting things that people are interested in, or getting fans on your Fan Page).  Start from the beginning and apply thought and a good dose of awareness to everything you do before moving forward.

Doesn’t the saying go “Perfect practice makes perfect”? Start small, get the basics right, then move forward.

Oh – and the soundtrack to this post? The Facebook soundtrack – fitting, eh?

It’s funny.  In certain circles, weird looks cross faces when I mention speaking to people for years without ever meeting them.  In other circles, it’s completely normal. It’s been this way for about 10 years now, at least as I remember it.

Ever since my teenage years, I’ve seen the Internet as a tool to connect with people.  At first it was old friends – people that had moved or that I’d lost contact with for one way other other.  Later, I got into WGI (the link is an MP3 to the last show I played, the Overture to Candide played from finish to start, then from start to finish – in case you’re wondering).  I also joined LiveJournal around the same time and started to see things changing.  All of a sudden, the Internet became a place for me to chat with people about upcoming shows, connect with members of other drumlines before we ran into them at a competition, capture my thoughts and feelings as I had them, and ultimately meet new people.

All in all, this seemed pretty natural.  I’d be meeting these people in person a short time later – and many of them I’d already met in passing – we just didn’t have the luxury of time to talk.  In that social circle, connecting online was normal.  Mention this to people I went to school with though and I got a completely different reaction – it clearly wasn’t normal to them and in fact, was really, really strange.

Jump forward a decade and these days, I’m hard-pressed to count friends and acquaintances that I haven’t met online on two hands – part of this is work-related (I work in marketing/social media as a job), and part of this is lifestyle related, seeing as I’m into music with a really strong online presence and community (drum and bass, dubstep, WGI/DCI, etc).

I spent Thanksgiving in the UK and got to thinking about it on the plane ride back.

The friend who let me crash at their place? I met them in person, but through someone I met online.  We’ve kept in contact for 5ish years exclusively online, and kept up online by and large even when I lived in the UK.

The offices I visited when I arrived, to catch up with people I’ve previously worked with? I met them at an event in NYC, but only because I saw a Tweet that they’d be in town and arranged to meet up.  I knew them online first and have kept in contact online ever since (over a year and a half now).

The old friend I caught drinks/dinner with and my old flatmate who came into town to see me? I met one online and one through well, living together, but we’ve all kept in contact online for the past year and a half and 5+ (respectively).

These are just a few examples, but in each one, the relationship wouldn’t have happened or be maintained without the use of the Internet.  Nowadays I find it normal to keep in contact with people all over the world and feel like I actually know what’s going on in their lives – even if we haven’t seen each other in person for years.

What’s this mean for you? It means that you shouldn’t overlook the power of the Internet as a medium – not only to promote your own stuff, but to discover new people and new opportunities, as well as maintain the ones you have.

Pretty simple. huh?

I’ve been following Hypebot’s 3-part series (so far) about DJ Shadow’s marketing plan for his current tour, Shadowsphere.  If you haven’t read it, it’s a great series.

Overall, the thing that sticks with me throughout the series is the attention to detail that Shadow’s Marketing Manager (Michael – and make that “Project, Marketing and Merchandise Manager“) has used to build out their strategy and tactics for managing the tour.  Instead of trying to find one solution for all aspects of the tour promotion, Michael’s using many different tools, each designed to do one thing very well.

For event-based marketing, Michael’s lined up the following arsenal:

• Facebook (yeah, more on this in a bit)
• iPhone app (with geo-targeted push notifications!)
• Square at merchandise tables
• Street team
• Buttons (yeah really, buttons!)
• Merchandise (with multiple price points)

Now, for the more long-term aspect of marketing DJ Shadow for this tour (and after), Michael and Shadow are all over the place – in a good way!

• djshadow.com
• DJ Shadow iPhone app (including a merchandise section within the app)
• SMS text campaign for a free download
• Email marketing (with signup at the merchandise table)
• Facebook
• Twitter
• MySpace
• iLike
• Reverbnation

Seriously, they’re everywhere! Wait, did you miss that? That’s the point!

Let me explain.  A lot of people (businesses included, not just musicians!) take the approach of only marketing themselves where they feel comfortable doing so.  This means that if they’ve not used Reverbnation or iLike before, they’re not going to look at it in terms of what marketing potential it holds.  Starting from where you feel comfortable is the opposite approach that you should be taking, as it’s really not about you. It’s about your customers/fans and where they are and where they want to connect with you.

Now, getting back to Facebook! I’d like to highlight this gem:

Bottom line: Facebook works because they figured out the ultimate formula for data portability.  The fact that I can post a geo-targeted update on Facebook, and that update will post to users within a specific geographic location, who can then share it with their entire network, is marketing gold.  When I update Shadow fans about a show, I only want to update the fans in the region of where that show is.  The beauty is, those people can then go and share it with ALL of their friends, wherever they may be, who in turn may click the link, and be redirected to the Shadow Facebook, or better yet, DJShadow.com.  This takes away the problem of mass-marketing a show for a specific region, but gives it the ability to go viral on a wider level than just the region targeted.  This also creates the ability for 1 show to begin an online buzz for the entire tour.

I’ve posted about my annoyance with people that do what Michael is referring to above – the lack of geo-targeting with event invites. I LOVE the fact that they’re taking this into account and putting the power in their fans hands to promote the event for them, without over-saturating them to the point of annoyance with invitations to events they can’t attend.

For the email marketing, the merch table with multiple price points and the street team – my lesson is this.  Don’t abandon the basics.

If you have a well-kept email list, use it! People are going to want to by souvenirs from the concert, so give them options! If you have people who want to marketing for you on the streets, use them to get the word out the “old fashioned” way. Don’t throw away everything you’ve done in the past for something that seems the shiny new object – you’ll just end up seeing scattered and cause your fans to be in a perpetual state of confusion over where they can find you.

Kudos to DJ Shadow and Michael for putting together a solid marketing plan for the tour!

I’m curious about why people use Facebook.

More specifically, I’m curious about how people use Facebook.  The network itself has an interesting past – from starting out as a purely social networking site limited to certain universities (which is when I joined), to becoming a behemoth marketing tool complete with targeted ads, Fan Pages and Groups (so, ads, small versions of microsites and something akin to a listserv, but on steroids).

I ran across this article today which caused a pretty instant “WTF ARE THEY SMOKING?!” reaction upon reading this line (emphasis mine):

It takes an incredible commitment to cultivate a personal brand.  To go from three Facebook friends to 3,000 is no small feat; same goes for Twitter — to grow a personal fan base requires a savvy combination of content creation, curation, promotion and cool.

For me, going from “three Facebook friends to 3,000″ would literally mean that I met 2,997 new people.  I use Facebook much the same as I have for the past 6ish years – as a way to aggregate everyone I’ve ever met in my life.  I don’t add people who just happen to know my friends, and only rarely add people that I haven’t met in real life (though, due to my Internet-heavy life, there are a few exceptions).

The rest of the article is remarkably on point though – if you’re interested in the corporate brand/personal brand discussion at all then I’d suggest that you go here and read it.

But, getting back to my original question… how do you use Facebook?

I’ve been doing some thinking and see a pretty clear breakout for artists/musicians/people that care to have a visible brand of any sort:

• Personal Page For friends, family, acquaintances, people they know. It contains details about who they are, not just the brand they present to the world. There are probably varying levels of access (via friends list/privacy settings)
• Fan Page For fans and friends/family/acquaintances that want to keep in touch with what you’re doing professionally. There aren’t varying levels of access, but the content is designed to be used as a marketing tool.
• Group I don’t think that many musicians have jumped on Groups yet, but I see a lot of useful applications of them.  This is more of an unstructured conversation than your Fan Page, but may have a lot of the same people involved.  This is also used as a marketing tool, but it may be a value-added one, as you can make groups private.

So – how do you use Facebook? Do you have a personal page and a Fan Page? Do you market yourself through your personal page (and things like event invites, etc)?

Oh, and speaking of event invites – here’s how to block the people that keep spamming you with them.

Tell me in the comments, please! I halfway think that I’m missing the boat with Facebook and if so, I’d love to know why/how.

I’ve been a big fan of Behringer products for years.  They produce quite the extensive line of DJ, sound and other music-related products, and I’ve always had great experiences.  That being said, they were pretty much out of sight, out of mind for years. I stopped DJin’g and just didn’t have a need to keep up with what they were doing.  I’ve been paying attention to them again lately though, mainly due to their Twitter stream.

I took a look around their social presence and really like what I saw.  So much so that I decided to write an entire blog post about it – not bad, eh?

I’ll start with the website:

The clean style really showcases both the products they want to feature (rotating in the center), as well as a larger portion of their product line and their social outposts, all without being crowded or poorly-designed.

Great, but their Twitter stream is really what caught my eye.  Let’s take a look!

I LOVE the fact that they’re on top of responses.  A lot of people/companies who are just jumping into social media seem to forget the “social” aspect and just use their accounts to push our news about their company.  Behringer does post updates about their products, but they also feature weird musical instruments, ask questions and have conversations with people that respond to them. It’s a really great combination of interesting information and interaction, and I regularly go check the account just to see what I’ve missed from them. Really.

I hopped over to Facebook next and really, the only negative thing I have to say here is that I wish they had a better avatar. It is consistent with their other profiles (like Twitter above), but just a bit too long for the space.  Still – if I’m just pointing out the avatar and not the actual content, I consider that a huge win.  Make no mistake, the content is really good! Take a look for yourself.

Behringer does cross-post content from Twitter to Facebook (or vice versa, more likely), and I like that they do this.  They don’t try and shove people back and forth between the platforms, yet they make sure that if you’re on Twitter, you’ll see the much the same information as you’d see on Facebook.  They also reply to comments on Facebook which is unique! You’d be surprised how many companies post something then just leave it.  Questions go unanswered, kudos go unthanked and opportunities to, you know, be social, go unrecognized.

As if that wasn’t enough, they’re also on YouTube and Flickr – both give you a good “behind the scenes” view of what’s up at Behringer, including shows they’re at and videos they’re making (even just for fun).  The videos are fun to watch and the photos are a combination of company photos and fan submissions – I really enjoyed looking through both sites and seeing some of the faces and personalities.

So – some takeaways:

• Interaction is good. Don’t be afraid to use @ replies, DM’s or comments to respond to questions, thank people for their support or offer help.  Sometimes all people want is to be heard.
• Consistency is good. Use the tools you’ve selected to their full potential! Cross-post content and encourage people to connect with you where they feel most comfortable doing so – not where you want them to do so.  You don’t have to copy everything (and in fact, you probably shouldn’t), but posting key pieces of content on multiple sites isn’t always a bad thing!
• Design matters. It may seem completely obvious, but web design matters! I was encouraged to poke around Behringer’s site simply because it was easy to use.  Don’t be afraid to change things up or invest some serious time and resources to make your website more effective.  Websites are still important!

What other companies do you like in the social space? Share your favorites in the comments!

Man, I have a love/hate relationship with Facebook.  I think most people love and hate equal parts – the privacy concerns, the ever-changing user options, the user interface changes, the list goes on and on.

I wrote this just about a year ago and sadly, the problem has only gotten worse since then.

I’ll admit this upfront – this post is selfish.  I cannot count the number of times I’ve logged into Facebook and had an event invitation in my inbox for an event I couldn’t possibly attend.

You know what I mean. You log into Facebook and WHAMMO!, you have an invitation to an event that you’ll never attend because it’s 15 states away and a 2,000 mile drive. Or, even more outrageous, it’s across an ocean and a 5+ hour plane ride away.

It happens all the time, and unlike a year ago, there’s now a way to solve it without unfriending the offenders.

It’s a ridiculously simple process – hat tip to @mantywebdesigns for giving me the info.

Here’s how you do it:

First, go to your Account tab.  You’re looking for “privacy settings”, which is the 4th down in the list.

From there, go to the bottom of the screen and click where it says “block lists”.  I missed it the first few times around as I otherwise don’t have a reason to block people on Facebook, but bear with me!

It’s really easy from there on out – all you have to do is scroll down to “block event invites”, then add the worse offenders. They’ll still be your friends, but you won’t have to see their event invitations in your inbox anymore.

Problem? Solved!

In case you want to know more about Facebook, I encourage you to go and check out some other stellar posts I’ve found:

• 10 Privacy Settings Every Facebook User Should Know
• How to change your Facebook Places privacy settings in 6 steps
• HOW TO: Set Up a Winning Facebook Fan Page

I’m not an expert blogger, but I do spend a good majority of my day reading and commenting on blogs.  A lot goes into writing a blog, even if it doesn’t seem that way on the surface.  Wondering how to get started? Here’s my take on the top 3 things you should keep in mind.

Content, Content, Content

It may be all about the Benjamin’s in your world, but it’s all about the content in mine.  Make your blog interesting and I’ll keep coming back. I don’t want to read a million posts talking about how fabulous you are, but I do want to read a million posts about your creative process, the work that goes into marketing your work, inspiration you find throughout your daily life, or other artists you’ve been digging lately.

Blog posts don’t have to be epic tomes! Length isn’t necessarily an important factor here. It’s more about the point you’re trying to get across – a good story will keep me reading far longer than the shorter version of the same story that lacks substance.

Looks Are Important

I may not know what you look like on stage, but I do know what you look on the Internets.  Your blog can be pink, purple, orange, green or blue – just make it easy to navigate and I’ll keep coming back.  If you’re wondering if your site looks like to an outsider, ask someone that has never visited before and see what they say they like or dislike.

Highlight what you want your reader to pay attention to first. If it’s your content and your videos, make sure you give them equal real estate.  There was a big discussion about sidebars on the last #blogchat, and it seemed like the overwhelming conclusion was that your sidebar has to be useful. If you’re active on other sites, provide an easy way for people to find you there. If your posts leave a lot of room for follow-up, or if you just want people to email you and make you feel loved, make sure a link is prominently featured.  You figure out what’s useful by first figuring out your goals.  If you think your sidebar is getting too long, try creating new pages on your website to hold some of that content. A site shouldn’t be overwhelming to a new visitor!

Know Your Audience

There are a ton of ways to figure out what your readers enjoy.  I use Google Analytics to see which posts get the most traffic, and Google Webmaster to figure out how people end up on the site.  I keep an eye on which posts get Tweeted the most, and see who likes or comments on my posts that are shared on Facebook.

When all else fails – ask people what they want to read.  Ask them what questions they have for you and see what they say!

Want more? Check out Pro Blogger for some GREAT blogging tips. Also, don’t be afraid to emulate – if you like a blog, watch and see how they do things. See if you can adopt their practices for yours!

Do you have tips to share? Any lessons you’ve learned along the way? Share them in the comments!

This may come as a shock, but “making it” in the music business isn’t just about having a lot of talent.

Some would even ay that talent has completely gone out of the window, if they were to judge the talent of the industry as a whole by the stuff that takes over the radio airwaves.

So, if it’s not dependent upon your incredible talent, what does determine your success?

Part of it is luck – the whole “being in the right place at the right time” thing. But that’s a small part – something akin to the little midget slice of pizza when you’re looking at the pie – it sticks out, but it doesn’t really contribute to the whole in a significant way.

What about basic business skills? Simple things like how to write an email without sounding like someone in primary school, showing up to gigs on time, following up or following through when you give your word, respecting people’s time. How far will those get you? Pretty darn far!

There’s no wonder that some of the most successful musicians have strong business minds (Lady GaGa, The Roots). They realize that business skills, even something as simple as basic professionalism, matter. They matter to the engineer that masters your upcoming release. They matter to the web designer who works their magic with your website. They matter to the event organizers who book you to ply their event, and they matter to the agency you’re pitching to represent you.

Basic professionalism can make you or break you, especially when you’re just starting out.

Never ever underestimate how valuable someone’s time is to them, as its the surest thing you can do to wreck your relationship by ignoring it. From late-notice requests, mis-spelled pitches, no call no show cancellation notices, to failing to return an email or give someone a ring back to confirm a project – remember to mind your manners.

Treat the people you work with like you want them to treat you – with respect, and as someone that’s trying to make a living off of what they do. It’s the golden rule that many people seem to forget.

Have any experience to share? I’d love to hear your stories – for better or worse. Leave them in the comments!

* Photo provided by Purple Phoenix

Before getting into this post, I’d like to repeat my disclaimer, as MySpace happens to be a client of the company I work for – and I want to be clear that the post below expresses opinions that are mine and mine alone (or… mine, all mine!).

This blog expresses my personal opinions and not the opinions of anyone else… unless they’re being interviewed or I’m summarizing something they said – then it does.  I welcome comments and discussions, though do reserve the right to remove offensive or inflammatory comments if necessary.

My blog may come across as slightly sarcastic at times. That’s because I’m slightly sarcastic at times. Again, this is me, not my employer, my family, my friends or my favorite cactus talking.

Now that the disclaimer bit is over, let me explain my thoughts about MySpace and the wider online music world.

Think back to the early 2000′s. As far as social networking goes, it was just a baby. You had Friendster and MySpace, but not much else. As a musician, it made sense to put your efforts into MySpace, as it was quickly gaining popularity and had a very large audience. It was a great place to put press photos, music, information about your band members/your band, tour information, etc.

It had the magic duo – the functionality and the audience.

Jump forward to 2010 and the situation has changed dramatically. I still have a MySpace account and still go there to look at new music and check out what the bands I like are up to, but I’d be lying if I said that I used MySpace as frequently as I used Facebook or Twitter, for example.  Some of that is due to my job, as a good part of what I do requires me to pay attention to Twitter and Facebook on a daily basis, but it’s also due to personal preferences; my friends have mainly migrated away from MySpace, so it’s usefuless has gone from a “catch up with everyone”, to a “see new music/catch up with bands”.

Now, MySpace has been taking some great steps recently to fix some of the things that their users were talking about – such as a redesigned look and feel. That’s fabulous, and as a user I really appreciate the change (hey there, MySpace – thanks!).

What does this mean for bands?

It means that your audience is no longer in one central place.  If you audience isn’t in one central place, what sense does it make for you to only exist in that “no longer central” place?

Think of it this way.

Let’s say you lived in a small town and you only had one grocery store. Suddenly there was a population boom and 3 more stores opened. If you were selling a product at that one grocery store, wouldn’t you want to get your product into the other new stores? Your former customers could start wanting to go to one of the new stores for any number of reasons, but you still want to get your product in front of them. True? Absolutely.

Diversify

No, this isn’t a post saying that MySpace is useless (it’s still quite useful), and I’m also not telling you delete your band page off of MySpace (keep it!).

This is a post telling you to look beyond the single grocery store.

• Look at places like soundcloud to post your tracks/give your fans the ability to download mixes.
• Look at Facebook to maintain a basic presence for people that use that social network as their first port of call (they do have 500 million users).
• Look at Twitter to chat with your fans and expose your music to potential new fans.
• Look at flavors.me to aggregate all of these outposts onto one central page.

All of these places provide an easy way for you to be found on a Google search, and even if you prefer going to MySpace, it doesn’t really matter if your fans/potential fans don’t.

The best part? They’re all free (like MySpace), and don’t require any knowledge of HTML to set up.

Note: flavors.me does charge $20/year if you want to make your URL bandname.com instead of flavors.me/bandname. You can set it up and keep the original URL for free though.

So – bands/musicians/producers/DJ’s – I’m curious! What do you think? Have you tried any of the above? Did they work for you? Why or why not?

In light of my post explaining how to start listening across the social web, I thought I’d run a test to see which bands already were listening.  Plus, I really needed some new music.

It all started with this tweet:

I repeated the tweet a bit later on with the hashtag of the day (#musicmonday) to see if people were following the hashtag, rather than searching for the generic terms of “band” or “new music”.

I then posted variations of the tweets above that got the most response once a day for the next 6 days.

You know what was surprising? Aside from a band @ replying me because someone else @ replied them telling them to do so, not one single band, producer, singer/songwriter, guitarist, drummer, or any other kind of musician responded to my query.

I was pointed in the direction of numerous bands my friends liked, which was great… but that wasn’t the point.

The point was to see if any musicians were using even a basic Twitter search (like, oh, #musicmonday, or “looking for new music”, or “looking for new bands”).

There, now you have 4 searches you can subscribe to (get the RSS feeds in your Google Reader). You’re welcome!

Is anyone else as flabbergasted as I am that this failed on such a spectacular level?